In July of 2015, BiNet USA President Faith Cheltenham and BiNet USA Secretary Lynnette McFadzen attended Netroots Nation and the LGBT Netroots Connect pre-conference. They also engaged local Arizona bisexual community members regarding the future of the LGBTQ community with the BiNet USA + #OurTomorrow project.

Faith Cheltenham and Tara Avery from the Los Angeles Bi Task Force(back in purple) take a moment to breathe after handing out over 400 bisexual pride and pansexual pride necklaces and collecting over 200 surveys.

Photo Credit: Los Angeles Bi Task Force

Major special thanks to Tara Avery and Kisha Turner for survey support!

BiNet USA President Faith Cheltenham will join professors, historians, noted advocates and community leaders like Ashley Love and Jennicet Gutiérrez to speak outside Warner Brothers Studios (the film’s distributor) as part of an education rally about the forthcoming movie, Stonewall.From Stonewalling Accurate & Inclusive Depictions (S.A.I.D.):

S.A.I.D.’s education rally highlights the
misinformation and revisionism depicted in ‘Stonewall’, a film highly
disputed for its whitewashing, Hollywood trans-face casting, gay-washing, bi-erasure
and trans-erasure.

Affirming
Her True Story, Not His Revisionist Glory: An Education Rally

Along with trans erasure, there continue to be concerns surrounding the erasure of bisexuals from Stonewall, including the erasure of Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson identifying as trans and bi, as well as the erasure of their friend and colleague Brenda Howard, one of the founding mother's of the bisexual movement.

In a review of the recent book Stonewall, Sarah Stumpf of the Bisexual Books Tumblr writes,

The final blow of erasure and inaccuracy concerns Brenda Howard. In Bausum’s telling of the story, the bisexual woman who founded that first Christopher Street Liberation March, aka The Mother Of Pride just doesn’t exist. Instead all credit for the commemorative marches and subsequent political and cultural achievements of pride is given exclusively to her gay male cohort Craig Russell. To be clear, everything I’ve seen indicates that Russell and Howard co-planned several of the earliest marches, but to give him exclusive credit is appalling. Brenda Howard continued working with what we now call pride parades (as well as other activism) long after Russell moved on. The blunt truth is that without Brenda’s dedication to the march every year until her death in 2005, there is little doubt that Pride as we know it would not exist. - Read the whole review

Inaccurate depictions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) history hurt lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Lesbian women like Storme Delarverie were also instrumental in the events leading up to the rebellion at Stonewall that night and should have their voices remembered too.

In light of the tremendous loss of life being experienced by Black transgender women in the U.S. right now, it is particularly important that this film create opportunities to celebrate the STARS of LGBT history like Black trans icon Marsha P. Johnson.

Let's send a strong message of support for our trans brothers, sisters and gender non-conforming siblings whenever and however we can. You can start by signing this petition on WhiteHouse.gov!

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

The board of BiNet USA is pleased to announce two new appointments, to the offices of Vice President and Secretary respectively

Aud Traher

Activist and Board member Aud Traher, will be stepping into the role of Vice President to help lead the organization as current President Faith Cheltenham takes a step back in her BiNet USA activities. Aud has been an activist in bisexual, disability, and transgender activism for 5 years.

Lynnette McFadzen has been a bisexual, trans, elder rights and disability activist for three years and currently continues with her podcast, The BiCast, podcasting for the bisexual+ community which provides support, resources,education and advocacy for our diverse community.

Monday, August 24, 2015

Every couple years, I decide to
immerse myself into my local LGBT community. Every couple years, I find
myself backing away over the rampant biphobia within. Over this past
weekend I experienced my latest examples of how our LGBT communities
fail to see or care about our voices.

I live in a college
town of around ninety thousand people. Representative of our community
is one Stonewall organization and it throws our annual Pride celebration
in late August when the students are freshly returned to town for the
coming school year. On the first night of Pride, Stonewall held a
variety show. This show began with an announcement from the production
that anyone who takes offense should just leave. That was the first red
flag, because any time someone does pre-silencing tactics like that it's
indicative of them knowing in advance that their program is going to be
problematic. And then the emcee took to the stage with all of the
"queers who aren't gay" biphobia and "parts=gender" transphobia we've
all experienced time and again followed by all the "I hate people who
don't have penises" misogyny they could throw in.

History
has shown me, time and again, that quietly addressing Stonewall's
organizers doesn't cause for change to happen or for problems to even be
acknowledged. So I called out the biphobia on Facebook and was quickly
told by one Stonewall board member I should have brought my concerns to
them rather than to the public.

While this was going down, my co-editor at Bisexual Books, Sarah Stumpf, made the joking-but-exasperated comment "gods
save us from biphobic, transphobic, lesbophobic gay men with
microphones," which lead to her being attacked by another of my
Stonewall's board members: a self-described gay man with a microphone.
Then local transgender women began airing grievances with our board. . .

It
all leads to great drama, but more importantly continues to shine a
bright light on one of the largest ongoing problems in our queer
communities: if you are not a white monosexual cisgender person your
voice and your experience matters less in our community.

We
need transparent and public dialog in our community. When a gay man
says other queer identities are just confused, that strengthens biphobic
culture in our community. When our community's representative says we
should leave if we don't like it, that's hate.

LGBT
organizations need to start doing better. They need to understand these
jokes are a form of biphobia that only reinforces our discrimination
within LGBT spaces. They need to work
on making people who are queer but not gay or lesbian feel as accepted
and respected across the board. These issues go far beyond the event of
this past weekend, and are pervasive across all of our LGBT
organizations. It's time for gay and lesbian community leaders to listen, reflect, and work toward change, rather than maintain the status
quo of ignoring and further marginalizing those who have issues within
the community because they dare to speak out in public rather than
continue being silenced.

Tuesday, August 04, 2015

In June of 2015, BiNet USA President Faith Cheltenham traveled to New York to meet with local bi, pan, fluid, queer (bi+) leaders about the BiNet USA + #OurTomorrow project and attend the Lambda Literary Awards. We hope your enjoy the photos!

Community Definition of Bisexuality

“Bisexual - A person whose enduring physical, romantic and/or emotional attraction is to other people of various sexes and/or gender identities. Individuals may experience this attraction in differing ways and degrees over their lifetime.”

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